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He was nearing the door when he couldn’t take it anymore. With a shout of anger, he threw a chair into a wall, smashing it into pieces. Splintered wood showered the room. His sister was moving so quickly, he could barely keep up with her.
People wisely stepped out of their way as they wove through the club. Darien didn’t trust himself right now, and some innocent bystander might get their neck snapped before he even realized what he was doing.
They had just left the doors of the Devil’s Advocate and were in the crisp air of the late afternoon when Ivyana spun around to face him. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were bolted wide with fear.
“Take them down,” she gritted out, throat bobbing. “I want you to take them all down.”
He tried to find the words that would ease her worries, but he came up empty. Because he was just as worried as she was.
Those assholes had found out where they lived, where Loren worked, what school she went to, where they fucking slept. He wouldn’t put it past them to have gathered more information than that, and if he didn’t agree to work with them, if he didn’t cooperate…
There was strength in numbers, but he and his Devils weren’t always together. They took jobs alone, just like the one Darien would be heading to as soon as he dropped Ivy off at home. As long as Randal’s business partners were around, none of them were safe. And he couldn’t simply walk back into the club and kill them; Gaven had a lot of ties, not just in this city, but beyond as well, stretching into the surrounding states and across the ocean. If the prick suddenly turned up dead, it wouldn’t take his men long to figure out who’d done it and retaliate.
Which meant Darien would have to do more than just kill Gaven. He would have to get rid of all of them—and crumble the entire operation they’d put in place.
“I’ll take care of this,” he told Ivy. She was pacing the sidewalk, heart beating fast, fingertips pressing the pulse in her temples.
He hated seeing her like this. It brought back memories of their childhood, back when he’d done his best to shield her from their father’s wicked ways but didn’t always succeed. There was a lot of screaming back then, a lot of crying, a lot of talk of running away. Sometimes, he still wondered where they would’ve ended up if they had done it—if they’d found the courage to leave the cage that was disguised as a home.
“Ivy, I will. Look.” He already had his phone in hand. He dialed Finn, and the detective picked up on the second ring.
“Solace,” he said in greeting.
Ivy stopped pacing. She folded her arms across her chest and watched the sidewalk in silence, the skin on her neck raised to gooseflesh. It took a lot to rattle Ivy, and most of the time what succeeded at rattling her was anything that had to do with Randal. They’d managed to keep the location of Hell’s Gate a secret for years, and now that it was exposed…
“I’ll do it,” Darien said. “I’ll call you as soon as I have something worth reporting.”
There was a pause and a crackle on the other end that sounded like papers being rustled. “Something happen?”
“Let’s just say you’d better have a solid plan in place and a whole lot of firepower.”
A pause. And then: “That’s what you’re for.”
Darien laughed, but there was nothing funny about this. He wasn’t going to get any help, was he? Not that he’d expected it, especially not from law enforcement. After all, that was why Finn had come to him.
But he had a plan. A crazy plan that might not work, but he was willing to risk it. Finn had mentioned a few things the day they’d talked in his office that might not be such a bad idea after all.
“You fuck with me, I will kill you,” Darien warned. He hung up.
He would take care of it. As the leader of the Seven Devils, it was what he did best.
Cleaning the shit off the streets and taking care of his family. Even if it killed him.
PART II
THE CHALK DOOR
12
By the time Darien got back to Hell’s Gate, he was exhausted. His whole body ached, and nearly every part of him was colored with bruises and cuts, a few of those cuts deep enough to leave scars.
The collection he’d been hired for was a vicious breed of demon known as a Hound, a creature that looked nothing like its name. He’d tracked it down in Angelthene National Forest, where it had taken up residency near the waterfalls that brought in thousands of tourists every year—and those tourists brought in thousands of precious gold mynet to spend at the many businesses and attractions throughout the city. Which was why he hadn’t been the least bit surprised when the mayor had asked if he would take care of the demon, though he didn’t exactly jump with joy when presented with the offer.
This was only the second Hound he’d killed in his lifetime, and after today’s events, and what’d happened at Whitebridge, he preferred to keep it that way. It was one of the hardest creatures to kill, mostly because of its sheer size and strength. Not to mention the poisonous barbs on its tail. He’d been paid handsomely for the job, but it was creatures like these that made him question if the money was worth the fuss, not to mention the damage to his body. He never used to give a shit about that, had even went out looking for it, but now…
Now, he didn’t need pain to feel alive. He had a new addiction—one with a gorgeous smile and hair like sunlight. And while he still needed violence to curb his inner demons and smother his Surges, it didn’t hold the same appeal as before, and whenever he found that he could go without it, he did, always choosing her. He would always choose her.
Darien strode into the house, not bothering to remove his boots and barely managing to get his keys into the wooden bowl in the entrance hall as he passed the glass table.
